Award-winning ethical trade consultancy

About us

About us

Founded in 1997, Impactt is an award-winning ethical trade consultancy delivering practical, innovative, change-focused solutions across multiple industries and countries. Our global teams draw on both ethical and commercial expertise, together with a full understanding of complex supply chain challenges. We help funders, brands, retailers and suppliers to address pressing social issues, from modern slavery to empowering women.

Our mission

We aim to help improve the lives of 6m workers in global supply chains by 2020 by developing win-win solutions that work for businesses and workers, harnessing the power of supply chains for positive change. Since 2006, we have reached some 1.38m workers.

Our approach

We unlock the positive potential of supply chains to maximise benefits to businesses and workers. Our global teams combine a deep understanding of ethical trade, labour rights and sustainable development issues with a firm grasp of commercial realities and sourcing practices.

In particular, we:

Develop solutions that meet workers’ and businesses needs.

Make balanced, considered recommendations based on robust evidence coupled with creativity, innovation and practical thinking.

Apply our global knowledge and proven ways of working to local contexts, accelerating progress on resolving complex challenges.

What we offer

Leading innovation in ethical trade

As a longstanding innovator in the ethical trade space, we design, revise and develop unique, high impact programmes across the supply chain. We leverage new possibilities through collaboration and cross-learning, pushing the sector to go further, faster.

Being the first to use productivity improvements to support sustainable improvements in job quality for workers, through our Benefits for Business and Workers

Supporting the development of the Gangmaster Licensing Authority, a public body protecting vulnerable workers in the UK food and drink industry.

Setting the standard for child labour remediation by creating the Child Labour Operating Procedures (CLOP), in consultation with 90 practitioners in the field.

Founding the Local Resources Network, a global network driving sustainable improvements for workers and the environment in global supply chains.

Today, we continue to innovate, both through our own programmes and by helping a multiple of stakeholders – from investors, foundations, brands, and suppliers to unions and workers – to realise the shared benefits of a virtuous supply chain.

Workers meeting in Bangladesh

A selection of our current, most innovative projects includes:

Strengthening worker voice by piloting a new impact measurement and reporting tool together with AIM-Progress and Sedex.

Partnering for change with key stakeholders in identifying, mitigating and remediation of modern day slavery.

Co-creating dynamic, supplier-facing programmes to enhance the strength and reach of certification bodies and the development of key industries.

Designing and implementing ground-breaking, community-based social dialogue work in the Bangladesh garment sector, reaching 15,000 workers to date.

Building an award-winning factory productivity programme to help demonstrate the link between improved pay and labour conditions and productivity and profit; the programme has now reached some 280,000 workers in 188 factories across Bangladesh, India and Myanmar.

Using social psychology techniques to change mindsets and fight discrimination and abuse in manufacturing worldwide.

Our core values

Fashion garment workers in China

We are a passionate, pragmatic, honest and down-to-earth group of people with a vision to improve workers’ livelihoods in a way that benefits businesses and workers.

The values that guide all our work are:

Integrity – We maintain a high level of professionalism and sensitivity throughout every project, particularly when dealing with controversial issues.

The ‘human’ touch – We are ‘real’ people who care about improving the lives of workers and believe that ‘humanising’ the supply chain is a vital step to building resilience and understanding.

Collaboration – We encourage a collective approach to co-creating solutions that benefit businesses and workers.

Knowledge – Everything we do is deeply rooted in knowledge of what works, robust data and a thorough understanding of businesses’ and workers’ needs.

Understanding workers

A strong understanding of workers’ needs is integral to unlocking the positive potential of the supply chain and building shared value for workers, suppliers and brands.

“All over the world, workers want the same things – fair pay, respect and the ability to create a better future for their family.”

Rosey Hurst, Founder and Director, Impactt

How we support funders and investors

We work with a wide range of funders and investors, including responsible investment fund managers, foundations and government funding bodies.

Investors use our analysis of global labour issues to inform investment decisions, particularly when evaluating companies’ performance on key ethical, social and governance (ESG) criteria. This helps to optimise fund performance and lower risk for their customers.

Funders make progress on their social impact goals by making financial contributions to our programmes.

Informing responsible investment decisions

We deliver robust insights on key issues from wages to working hours, labour standards and transparency, drawing on in-depth, proprietary data covering social and management practices across multiple industries and countries.

We tailor the information by industry, country or region, in line with your precise area of interest.

We provide a comprehensive picture of relevant macro-economic trends, comparing our findings with publicly available information.

Our services for investors include:

Workshops and production country visits

In-depth reports

Accessing workers’ views.

During our site visits since 2007, we have interviewed over 28,643 workers and through our work reached 1,027,785 workers.